The Economist Continental Europe Edition February 22, 2020

Politics Mike Bloomberg took part in a Democratic presidential debate for the first time, after a surge in his opinion-poll standing qualified him for inclusion. The other candidates attacked him over lewd comments he has made in the past and his billionaire status. Mr Bloomberg will reportedly sell his media company if he is elected president. More than 2,600 former lawyers and officials from the Justice Department signed a letter calling on William Barr to resign as attorney-general. Mr Barr recently intervened to reduce the recommended sentence in the case of Roger Stone, a disgraced confidant of the president. Using the power of the presidency Mr Trump pardoned a Who’s Who of business and political felons. These included Michael Milken, the “junk-bond king”, who was imprisoned in the 1990s, and…

Politics Mike Bloomberg took part in a Democratic presidential debate for the first time, after a surge in his opinion-poll standing qualified him for inclusion. The other candidates attacked him over lewd comments he has made in the past and his billionaire status. Mr Bloomberg will reportedly sell his media company if he is elected president. More than 2,600 former lawyers and officials from the Justice Department signed a letter calling on William Barr to resign as attorney-general. Mr Barr recently intervened to reduce the recommended sentence in the case of Roger Stone, a disgraced confidant of the president. Using the power of the presidency Mr Trump pardoned a Who’s Who of business and political felons. These included Michael Milken, the “junk-bond king”, who was imprisoned in the 1990s, and Rod Blagojevich, a…

IN 2018 A new word entered Silicon Valley’s lexicon: the “tech-lash”, or the risk of a consumer and regulatory revolt against big tech. Today that threat seems empty. Even as regulators discuss new rules and activists fret about the right to privacy, the shares of the five biggest American tech firms have been on a jaw-dropping bull run over the past 12 months, rising by 52%. The increase in the firms’ combined value, of almost $2trn, is hard to get your head round: it is roughly equivalent to Germany’s entire stockmarket. Four of the five—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft—are each now worth over $1trn. (Facebook is worth a mere $620bn.) For all the talk of a techlash, fund managers in Boston, London and Singapore have shrugged and moved on. Their…

IN 2018 A new word entered Silicon Valley’s lexicon: the “tech-lash”, or the risk of a consumer and regulatory revolt against big tech. Today that threat seems empty. Even as regulators discuss new rules and activists fret about the right to privacy, the shares of the five biggest American tech firms have been on a jaw-dropping bull run over the past 12 months, rising by 52%. The increase in the firms’ combined value, of almost $2trn, is hard to get your head round: it is roughly equivalent to Germany’s entire stockmarket. Four of the five—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft—are each now worth over $1trn. (Facebook is worth a mere $620bn.) For all the talk of a techlash, fund managers in Boston, London and Singapore have shrugged and moved on. Their…

AMERICA’S TOTAL student debt, at over $1.5trn, is larger than the national borrowing of most countries. It has quintupled in size since 2004, overtaking both borrowing on credit cards and car finance. This growth is often presented as evidence of a crisis. But the rise in total debt, though arresting, is not the real problem. It largely reflects increased borrowing by graduate students, such as budding lawyers, who will go on to be high earners. And 92% of student debt is owed to the federal government, meaning defaults pose no risk to the financial system (see Finance section). The real problem is that 11m Americans, many poor and non-white, and many duped into studying for worthless degrees, struggle to repay even modest debts. Some Democratic candidates for president seem not…

AMERICA’S TOTAL student debt, at over $1.5trn, is larger than the national borrowing of most countries. It has quintupled in size since 2004, overtaking both borrowing on credit cards and car finance. This growth is often presented as evidence of a crisis. But the rise in total debt, though arresting, is not the real problem. It largely reflects increased borrowing by graduate students, such as budding lawyers, who will go on to be high earners. And 92% of student debt is owed to the federal government, meaning defaults pose no risk to the financial system (see Finance section). The real problem is that 11m Americans, many poor and non-white, and many duped into studying for worthless degrees, struggle to repay even modest debts. Some Democratic candidates for president seem not to…